


Under the Mistletoe

by buffymysavior



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, F/M, Fluff, Mistletoe, Post-Snowball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 05:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17298452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffymysavior/pseuds/buffymysavior
Summary: Mike teaches Eleven about Christmas traditions.





	Under the Mistletoe

It was the Saturday before Christmas that Mike found himself anxiously watching the front door. It’d been a few weeks since the Snow Ball—aka, a few weeks since he last saw El. Hopper was still trying to keep her hidden away for the most part, stowed away from the world, but he’d agreed to let El visit Mike and the party a few times a month, so much as they took the necessary precautions to keep her safe and out of harm’s way.

Tonight was one of those rare times that Hopper let El out of his sight for a few hours. It was, of course, not without careful planning and preparation. (First off, Mike’s parents had to be out of the house. It was too risky for them to see El, especially if his dad recognized her because he was a total patriot, so they had to be gone before she was allowed over.) His mom was meeting a few of her friends for dinner, no doubt a wine glass in her hand at this very moment while his dad was at an office work party, most likely droning on about stocks and bonds and whatever else his job entailed. Nancy had taken Holly Christmas shopping with Jonathan and Will, which left Mike by himself at the house, sitting tensely on the couch and bouncing his leg in anticipation.

Five minutes passed, then ten, then five more, and Mike began to worry that she wasn’t coming. Maybe Hopper had changed his mind for whatever reason and he wouldn’t get to see El for another month, maybe even longer—

But then a knock sounded at the door, knuckles rapping against it twice, once, then three more times, and he felt a sigh of relief escape him. Hopper had told him about his secret knock when they’d planned this a few weeks ago. Their conversation was still fresh in his mind; it’d been what had kept Mike sane through the past several days, what had given him hope about his relationship with El. He’d been playing it on a loop like a well-worn cassette tape, rewinding every moment to get him through the days until he could see _her_.

It’d been after the Snow Ball; Hopper had made El wait in the car so he could talk to Mike “man to man.” Of course, this immediately annoyed him; he couldn’t possibly imagine why the chief would want to give him a “talking to” about taking care of El, as if it wasn’t obvious enough he would do so. Plus the notion of it all made him feel a little awkward. Talking about his relationship with El (the fact that they were even _able_ to have a relationship after everything that had happened was still a miracle in its own) was still fairly new, and the _chief_ of all people wasn’t exactly first on his list of people he’d want to talk about his feelings with. But there he was, cigarette pinched between his fingertips and wisps of smoke cascading from the lit end. “You know how much of a risk it was to bring her here tonight, right?” Hopper asked. Not meanly or anything. Just matter-of-factly, because it was. It _was_ a risk to take El...well, anywhere, and Mike knew it, too.

That didn’t stop him from getting defensive about it, though. “Believe me, I know,” Mike mumbled under his breath. How could he _not_ know? That had been the only thing on his mind as he sat on that metal fold-up chair in the gym, watching the door and just _hoping_ for a glimpse of her. He pushed back the memory, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. _Jesus_ , it was cold out here. Couldn’t they at least have done this inside? Shivering, he rubbed his fingers together to bring some feeling back to them.

“Then you also know how dangerous it would be to let her out into the real world,” he said. Mike balled up the fabric of his coat in his fists; he had come up with so many arguments for this, thought out plenty of ways to keep El safe. He had so much fight in him—and it was all for nothing. Because deep down, he knew Hopper was right. He knew even after everything, El wasn’t completely safe, would _never_ be completely safe. And as much as he wanted to spend every second with her, he wanted her protected even more. 

“Yes,” Mike said, this time without the sarcasm. There was no use in denying it or arguing with him, because at the end of the day, Hopper was just as headstrong as Mike and just as willing to protect El at all costs. 

It was silent for a few seconds as Hopper huffed out a puff of smoke, making Mike crinkle his nose at the smell. “So I’m thinking about twice a month you and your little friends can see her, maybe more or less depending if it goes okay.” 

Mike was pretty sure his jaw dropped, his heart stilling at the words. “What?” he asked, in shock or disbelief, he wasn’t sure. Probably a little bit of both. “You’re...you’re letting us see her? I thought—” 

“You thought wrong, kid,” Hopper said, a little amused. “Listen, I already tried to keep her away from you because I thought I was keeping her safe. And it worked, for the most part. But I almost lost her and I, uh...I don’t want to lose her again.” He looked down, tossing his cigarette on the ground and stamping what was left of it with his boot. “Twice a month. That’s the deal.”

Mike nodded his head in agreement, not even able to express how happy he was about the situation. From there, they discussed the ground rules (like how his parents had to be gone while she was there or the fact that they couldn’t go anywhere else besides his house and Hopper’s.) They weren’t even allowed to hang out for more than a few hours, and even though it was all kind of controlling and excessive in his opinion, Mike didn’t care. He was just glad that he got to spend time with her at all.

And especially since it was Christmas. Mike had spent a great deal of time trying to come up with what to give her for the holidays (he wasn’t sure if she even knew what Christmas was or if she _would_ get presents, but he wanted to give her one anyway.) And tonight was the perfect opportunity to give her his present since it was just a few short days away from actually being Christmas. Remembering the present he had wrapped up for her in the fort made him even _more_ nervous than he already was. He rubbed his palms against his jeans as he jumped up to get the door, yanking it open to see El and Hopper standing on the other side. 

The first thing he noticed was that El’s hair was different from both the other times he’d seen it. There wasn’t any spray or goop in it this time (not that she looked _bad_ with it like that, of course; he wasn’t sure if it was possible for El to look bad.) Instead, it was curly and loose, the ringlets barely coming down over her ears. She was all he could see for those few seconds, up until Hopper cleared his throat. “You know the drill. No leaving the house, no funny business,” he said, eyeing Mike (who was already blushing), “and don’t open up unless you hear my secret knock, all right?”

“Yes,” Mike said, trying not to sound exasperated.

“And be ready to be picked up by eight, okay?” he told El. “That’s eight-zero-zero on the dot." 

“I will,” El replied, giving him a smile, and if Mike wasn’t mistaken, a little bit of an eye roll.

“And if anything happens, call me. I mean it, _call me._ ”

“ _Okay_ ,” Mike and El said in annoyance, making both of them blush at having said it at the same time.

Hopper stood in the doorway for a few more seconds, almost as if he was trying to decide whether or not he should change his mind about the whole thing, before stepping back into the grass. “Have fun, kid,” he said, giving El a squeeze of the shoulder. Then he turned to Mike, giving him the slightest of nods. “Wheeler.”

Mike nodded back, not even bothering to give him a smart aleck comment in return (he _really_ didn’t want to risk what precious little time he had with El.) For a few seconds, they watched Hopper get into his car and drive off before Mike realized El was still standing outside (it was beginning to snow and flurries were starting to stick to her hair.) “Here, uh, come in!” he said, opening the door wider for her. She offered him a small smile, her warm eyes and smile contrasting starkly with the coldness of the outside. Just seeing it made Mike feel like a human bonfire.

“You can sit down if you want,” Mike offered. She did, sitting on the very end of the couch. _Now_ what was he supposed to do? Should he sit next to her in the middle, or would that be too forward? Or should he sit on the opposite end and risk looking like he didn’t want to sit close to her? He rubbed his hands against the front of his jeans again and nervously sat down beside her, making sure to keep at least _some_ space between them in case she didn’t want him there.

Mike tried to think of something to say, his mind spinning frantically. It was weird seeing her in his house again after a year of him only hoping that she were. It was a moment he’d only dreamt of over the past several months, but now that it was actually _here_ , he felt hopelessly tongue-tied.

He continued to search his mind for something, _anything_ , to say, but (thankfully) El beat him to it. “The tree,” she said. Her eyes were focused on the Christmas tree set up in the living room—his mom had put it up as soon as Thanksgiving had ended, the whole house decked out in wreaths and tinsel and fairy lights. “It’s pretty.” 

Mike glanced over to where the tree stood, lit up like a giant beacon. He supposed it _was_ kind of pretty; his mom was kind of a nut when it came to decorating for the holidays, meaning everything looked like someone had eaten Christmas decorations and then proceeded to throw them up all over his house. “Oh, thanks,” he said, the nervous smile on his face tugging upwards. “My mom made it look like that. She loves decorating.” His voice dipped into an awkward pause before he asked, “Do you have a Christmas tree in your house?” As soon as the words came out, he felt stupid. He didn’t even know if she really knew what Christmas was (though he’d kind of hope she would considering it was in a few days) or if they’d even had enough time to put up a tree with everything they’d had going on over the past couple weeks.

Luckily, he was saved from his embarrassment after a few seconds when El smiled, eyes lit up with an answer. “Yes,” she said. “But not like that. It’s...smaller, and not as pretty. And it’s kind of…,” she bent her arm in a gesture that represented a sagging tree, making Mike laugh.

“It kind of sounds like the tree from Charlie Brown,” he joked. Immediately, a confused look formed on her face, eyebrows furrowing in the middle, which really wasn’t that surprising. Of course she wouldn’t have known that reference; she’d grown up in a lab for most of her life and had been busy saving their shitty excuse of a town when she wasn’t.

“Charlie...Brown?” she asked. Her smile was dipping into the smallest of frowns, and Mike would swear it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. 

“Yeah! He’s like a cartoon character on TV. There’s this old Christmas special about him every year, it’s kind of a classic,” he explained. El didn’t look so lost now, but she did seem a little...sad, maybe. Like she was out of the loop or something. “We could...watch it if you want?”

“Really?” El asked. Her eyes were as bright as the twinkle lights on the tree, and the sight made him happier than he ever could’ve imagined.

“Yeah, of course!” he exclaimed. “We can even make popcorn and stuff. My mom just bought some when she went shopping the other day.”

El smiled, her mouth tipping up at the corners. “Okay.”

Mike felt some of his nervousness lessen; this wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it was going to be. “Okay, cool. Follow me,” he smiled. In a sudden burst of courage, he grabbed her wrist and led her to the kitchen, his cheeks burning red once he pulled away.

“What’s all this?” El asked, pointing to the counter. Gingerbread houses and dozens upon dozens of iced cookies and cakes decorated the surface, crowding every free space in the kitchen.

“It’s just stuff for Christmas,” he explained, feeling a little sheepish as he looked at all of it. “A lot of people make desserts and stuff for the holidays.” He paused, wondering if he should ask. “You...do know what Christmas is, right?” He really hoped she did, otherwise the majority of everything he’d said this evening would have gone straight over her head.

“Yes,” she said eagerly. “Hopper, I mean…,” she paused for a few seconds, seemingly struggling for a word to call him. “My dad told me. He said a man in a red suit goes down everyone’s chimney’s and gives them presents for being good.”

Mike blinked; he hadn’t thought Hopper was the type to tell El about Santa Claus, especially since she was a teenager, but he was honestly glad for it. He knew she’d never experienced anything like that after growing up in a lab her whole life, and he _definitely_ wasn’t going to be the one to take that away from her. “Oh, yeah, Santa’s pretty cool. He gives all the kids in the world presents all in one night. And he has twelve reindeer that lead his sleigh by flying.”

El was leaning on the counter, chin resting in her palms as she listened to him enthusiastically. The sight was so adorable that it made Mike’s heart burst, but it also made it ache a little, too. All the Christmas traditions he’d taken for granted every year were things she’d never experienced or even heard of. And he knew Hopper was trying (getting her to believe in Santa and putting a tree in their house was proof of that) but it wasn’t like he was the most festive person. Plus, with being a single parent and working as the police chief, Mike doubted he had much time to do a bunch of holiday stuff like his family did. “I have an idea,” Mike smiled. “How about we make Christmas cookies _and_ watch the movie?”

“How do you make cookies?” she asked, curiosity and excitement in her voice. 

“It’s really easy. Plus you’re supposed to lay out cookies for Santa so he’ll come to your house, and if we make cookies, you can take them home and leave them out for him Christmas morning!” Mike was pretty sure he sounded way too excited over this considering Santa wasn’t even real, but he couldn’t help it. Seeing El excited made him excited, too, especially if it was over something she’d never been able to experience (even if it was something as simple as making Christmas cookies.)

El nodded fervently, seemingly beaming at the thought of making Santa Claus cookies. Quickly, Mike cleared the counters off (he had to shove some of his mom’s desserts onto the dining table) and began pulling out the ingredients he needed according to one of his mom’s sugar cookie recipes.

He explained to El what all of the measurements meant (she was still learning numbers) and helped her fill each measuring cup up with the right ingredient. When they got to the flour, she accidentally spilled a whole cupful over herself, Mike, and the counter. She frowned at the mess, and Mike wasn’t sure what he was expecting to happen, but suddenly a rag was floating in mid-air to clean the mess off the counter. “Woah,” he mumbled in surprise. Even though he’d seen her use her powers several times before (hell, he’d seen her flip a _van_ once), it was still shocking to see, especially since it had been a while since he’d seen it.

“What?” she asked, a wondering smile gracing her lips.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just been a while since I’ve seen you...you know. Use the Force.” 

For a second, he was worried she wouldn’t get the reference, but then she laughed (maybe she was just doing it to be polite, but either way.) “I wasn’t supposed to use them...before. Too dangerous,” she said after a moment, wiping her hands on her jeans. It took Mike a moment for him to realize she was talking about when she’d been hiding at Hopper’s. “But I ran away. To find my sister.”

Mike felt _himself_ get confused. “You have a sister?” he questioned. He had so many questions. Like, _Since when_ ? And, _Where is she_ ? And, _Does she have powers, too?_  

Luckily, she was answering them before he even had to ask. “Yes. Her name is Kali. She lives in…,” she seemed to try to remember the name. “Chicago. She can make people see things. Things that aren’t there. She ran away.”                                                                                                                                               

“Oh…,” Mike said. “Are you allowed to see her at all?” 

She paused, using her powers to stir together the cookie ingredients. It was thickening into dough now, and Mike began to roll clumps of it out onto the counter and shape them with the cookie cutter. “I don’t know if she wants to see me,” she said slowly. “I left her. I…,” she paused again, looking up at him this time. “I wanted to come home.”

Mike wasn’t sure how to tell her that she _was_ his home, that seeing her after being without her for so long was like drifting out of a fog and into the sunshine. He didn’t know how to say _any_ of it (and definitely not without sounding like a total wastoid) so he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I’m glad you came home.” He hoped his face said what his probably lame words couldn’t.

She smiled at him, warm and bright before helping him cut the rest of the dough with cookie cutters. They popped them in the oven for a little bit before taking them out, letting them cool off while they cleaned up the kitchen. When they finished cleaning up their mess, Mike showed El how to put icing on the cookies, only smiling and laughing when she dumped half a bowl of green frosting onto a cookie shaped like Frosty the Snowman.

Once they finished with the cookies, Mike made them a bowl of popcorn (and heated up a few Eggos) for their movie. Together, they sat down on the couch (he didn’t even have to second-guess where to sit this time because El pulled him down next to him, which may have been due to the popcorn and Eggos, but still.) As they settled in, Mike turned on the TV and clicked through the channels until he found CBS (they’d been playing _Charlie Brown Christmas_ pretty much every day leading up to the holiday.) Luckily, it was starting just as he switched it on so they hadn’t missed anything.

El thoroughly enjoyed the movie from what Mike could tell (she smiled a lot at the funny parts and asked questions when something confused her.) She got really excited when they got to the part about Charlie Brown’s tree. “That’s my tree!” she said proudly, pointing at the screen. 

The movie ended not long after that, and Mike could see the clock on the living room wall ticking by, the numbers closing in on eight o’clock (or eight-zero-zero as El called it.) Some of his previous worry was starting to come back to him—it was a quarter until eight and he still hadn’t given her his present. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he got the courage to say tell her. “I have something for you,” he said, the words coming out in a rushed panic. 

El raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You do?” 

He shifted in his spot on the couch, nerves climbing up his throat in spades. “Yeah. It’s downstairs. Here, I’ll, um, show you.”

He didn’t have to grab her hand this time because she was slipping her hand in his before he had even thought about it. Nervously, he led her down the steps and behind the stairs where the fort was hidden. It didn’t look much different from when she had stayed in it; even after he’d found out she was alive, he hadn’t taken it down. “You...you still have it up?” she asked. Her voice sounded quiet, or maybe it just sounded that way because Mike’s heart was beating so loudly in his ears that it was hard to hear anything else. 

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he said, stumbling on his words. He was worried that she found it weird or lame or something, but if she thought so, it didn’t show. “I didn’t want to take it down. I mean, I’ve practically been living in there for a year,” he joked. “I guess old habits die hard.” 

She smiled, and they stared at each other for a few seconds before Mike remembered why they’d come down here. “Oh, right, uh, I got you a present,” he said, pulling her into the fort with their interlocked hands (they still hadn’t let go.)

El frowned, confusion dancing in her eyes and tugging her eyebrows down to where they met in the middle. “I thought Santa was the one who gave out presents.”

He felt his face burn, and he tried to think of a quick save. “Oh, he is! But friends give each other presents, too, see? Open it,” he said, pushing the present into her lap before he could change his mind. He’d never been this nervous before; he wasn’t sure what her reaction would be to it, and he was kind of scared to find out.

Quickly, El ripped off the paper, practically tearing it to shreds as she tried to open the present. In her hands was a blue notebook, a little worn and wrinkled around the edges, but otherwise in decent shape. She gave him another look of confusion as she opened it, making him blush. He decided he’d at least _try_ to explain what it was, no matter how nervous he felt about the whole thing. 

“Well, um, when you were…” He wasn’t really sure how to put it. Missing? Lost? “When you were gone,” he corrected, “I thought about you all the time. I wondered where you were, if you were safe…” He took a breath, avoiding her eyes. It all sounded so stupid out loud, but he continued. “Sometimes I felt like I was going crazy thinking about if you were okay. Sometimes I thought about it so much that I wondered if I’d imagined all of it,” he admitted. That much was true; he’d beaten his memories of El to a bloody pulp by the end of that first month she’d been gone. “So, uh, I wrote it all down. Everything I could remember about you.” As the words came out, he felt kind of stupid, _more_ than stupid. Why would El need to remember something she lived through in the first place (and maybe something that she didn’t want to remember?) And also, he wasn’t even entirely sure how much she was able to read or if she could read at all, so his gift was basically probably meaningless to her.

But then she did something that exceeded his expectations (which were fairly low at this point, but still.) She smiled, first at Mike, then at the notebook in her hands, touching her fingers to the paper. “Everything?”

A swell of relief warmed in his chest. Maybe his gift wasn’t as lame as he’d thought. “Yeah. Writing it all down reminded me that it was real. That _you_ were real.” 

She stared at him for a few seconds, eyes pools of warm, goopy brown. And maybe he was imagining it, but he thought maybe El was leaning in towards him, and he felt himself leaning back, pushing forward on his palms from where they rested on the blanket. He saw her eyes flutter shut as she moved in closer, and Mike was sure they were about to kiss when something loud sounded from upstairs, startling them both. Two knocks. One. Then three more.

El pulled back and away, her expression falling. “I have to—”

“Oh. Yeah,” Mike nodded, trying to push away the rush of disappointment in his chest. He felt a surge of anger, one he felt after receiving static when he’d called El every night and never got a response, the anger he’d been consumed by after finding out Hopper had been hiding El for the past year. Because it wasn’t _fair_ that he only got to see her twice a month. 

But then she looked at him and smiled, holding the notebook he’d given her to her chest, and he forgot his anger. Because all he could think about was how pretty she was and how lucky he was that she was even _alive,_ that she wasn’t stuck in the Upside Down or being used as a lab rat. “Thank you, Mike. For everything.” She leaned towards him again, but this time hugging him, holding him against her chest with the notebook in between them. He blushed, holding her there against him for as long as he could get away with.

Neither of them moved, at least not for several seconds until the knock sounded again on the door, except this time it was more urgent. “I have to leave,” she said sadly.

Mike nodded, shoving away his disappointment. “We better not keep him waiting,” he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Once they got upstairs, Mike wrapped up a plate of cookies for her to take home (which he was sure Hopper wouldn’t complain about since he’d be the one eating them.)

As soon as they opened the door, Hopper was standing there, face flushed from the cold and probably something else, worry and anger and who knows what. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were narrowed. “What the hell took you so long? It’s freezing out here,” he snapped, face all hard lines and rigid angles.

El didn’t seem to take him all that seriously, though, instead rolling her eyes. “We’re fine,” she promised. “We were just saying goodnight.”

She gave him a look, one pleading and persistent all at once until he cracked. He sighed, a puff of iciness forming in the air. “I’ll be in the car. But don’t be too long. It’s getting late.”

She rolled her eyes again, more playful than patronizing as he made his way to the car. It was silent for a few seconds as they stood there, breathing in each other’s air. “Mike?”

His heart stilled, his breathing shallow. “Yeah?”

“I…,” she took a breath. “I missed you, too. When I was...hiding.” She glanced away. “I visited you. Almost every day.”

He blushed, not knowing what to say and feeling like he’d forgotten how to speak. “Oh.” He looked at everything but her, eyes looking up, down, and around when his eyes focused on something above them—a little strand of green tied together with a red ribbon. Mistletoe.

“Mike? What’s wrong? Was that bad?” El asked in confusion. He was pretty sure she was trying to meet his eyes, but he was practically frozen in place at having seen the mistletoe there.

“ _No_ ,” Mike said, shaking his head. If anything, he was glad that she’d been as worried about him as he’d been about her.

“Then what is—” she asked, then stopped, looking up at where he was. “What are you looking at?”

He glanced back down in embarrassment. “Nothing,” he said, trying to keep his tone neutral. (But his heart was racing again and he was more nervous than when he’d given her his gift, which was kind of dumb since he’d kissed El, twice, actually, but it was still fairly new.) Besides, the other two times had been a kind of a spur of the moment thing. It wasn’t like he’d had time to think about it like he did now.

“Mike,” she said, and he already knew what she was going to say. “Friends don’t lie. Friends tell the truth.”

He looked away in embarrassment. “It’s mistletoe,” he explained. “When two people stand under it, they’re supposed to kiss. It’s some dumb thing my mom put up when she was decorating.” (Though he wasn’t sure why; he didn’t really think his parents even loved each other, so it didn’t make sense as to why his mom would _want_ to kiss his dad. Unless it was just to keep up appearances that she actually did love him. That wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, not by a long shot when it came to his family.) “But we don’t have to. Not that I don’t want to, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to or anything. I mean, if you want to, you could—” 

Before he could even finish rambling (which, in all honesty, probably would’ve taken a while), El was leaning up and kissing him. It happened so fast that Mike wasn’t sure it’d happened at all, but judging by the tingling feeling in his lips and the fluttering in his stomach, he knew it did. She was smiling up at him when she pulled away, the faintest of blush on her cheeks and her eyes the warmest shade of brown he’d ever seen them.

Hopper honked his horn at them after a few seconds, and Mike practically jumped away from El in startlement. He resisted the urge not to flip Hopper the middle finger, instead asking, “I’ll see you, okay?”

“Soon?” she asked, almost for confirmation.

“Yeah, soon,” he said. His cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “I promise.”

She smiled and stepped away from him, lingering on his face for a few seconds before making her way to Hopper’s truck. He watched them until they were driving off down the road, waving even though he was pretty sure she was too far away to see him.

And that’s when he realized that that was the first time El had ever kissed _him_.


End file.
